Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1887-12-29
FARMING IN JAPAN.
The Small Proportion of the Country CuI
tivated and Comparative Comfort of
the People.


recent letter to the Mail writes: ]
said in my first letter from Japan that
the people in cities seem to be PLAYING
at running town. One feels the
same way about the farmers Every
thing is on such small scale and is
carried on with such wonderful nice
ness that one can scarcely realize that
farming here is the business of a life,
and very earnest and hard business
at that. There are no such things as
farm-houses; all live in villages OF
towns. There are no such things as
barns or out-hOuses in which to store
crops. Many farms are not one acre
in size, and comparatively few over
ten acres.
On one Of these little holdings the
farmer will have his rice field and
dozen other crops. Everything is
grown by irrigation. Although it
rains so much, no one relies upon nat
ural waterings. Everywhere there are
irrigating bitches. The little fields
are each perfectly level. A farm of
two OF three acres will have half
dozen levels. In the flat valleys they
all appear nearly the same, but in the
upper valleys, on rolling grounds, or
on the hill or mountain sides, each
field is terrace to itself. In the lat
ter the fields are of all shapes. often
only half-dozen feet wide, zig-zag,
rounding, and in every Imaginable
shape to suit the configuration OF the
land. SO that each field is perfectly
level. The water irrigating one field
drops down to irrigate those below.
The farms all look like the market
gardens near our cities. The pillow is
used only in few localities, and then
not for loosening the soil but to throw
up beds. | saw the first one to-day
near this place. All ground is dry
and perfectly prepared. The spade
and fork are unknown, but spade-like
hoes and forks do all the digging
Net weed is ever seen, and not
foot of ground is wasted. Between
the rice patches the little ridges which
confne the flooding waters are planted
in peas or some other crop.
The land is all double cropped. In
May the wheat and barley is harvest
ed. Immediately follows rice, corn,
millet, or something else. One sees
rice, sweet potatoes, eggplant, millet
of several varieties, turnIps, carrots,
tarro, beans, cotton, lilies, squash,
sesamum, maize or Indian corn, buck
wheat, hemp. flax for white cordage,
sugar cane, dishrag plant, tea plant,
indigo, mulberry, pear trees and many
other varieties of food crops side by
side in little tiny fields and in all
stages of maturity. In the large, low
lying river valleys the rice fields are
apparently of great extent, but on
close observation one sees that even
here few fields are much over one
eighth to One-quarter of an acre in
size.
In one locality l saw tea plantations
of good many acres, the possessions
of q single man. But these are eX-
ceptional. saw rice being harvested
near Toxic n month ago, and yet even
in this locality, where it is warmer,
the bulk of the crop is not yet ready
for the sickle. October is the regular
harvest month for this great staple
1t is the great crop of the country.
Formerly all rents were paid in rice.
All lands belong to the government;
the farmer pays SO much of the crop
in lieu of taxes. Under the new and
better system of government all rents,
.. e. taxes, are paid in money. Form
erly comparatively few daimios held
the entire country in fief, paying to
the government SO many sacks of rice.
They let the land to the tenants, tithing
everything, and virtually owned the
masfes. The daimios are now a thing
of the past, and tenants pay fixed
rents to persons who rent tracts of
greater or less size. The farmer now,
although he is bound down in abiect
poverty. neither feels like nor has the
air of slave.
Lands are fortified to some extent
by application of solid manures. but
the great dependence is upon them in
a liquid form. Everything is saved
that can be made to enrich the crop;
all rich soil is carefully preserved.
Conveniences are erected along the
highways and byways, so as to pre-
vent any waste. Coarse grass and
refuse straw is burned and the ashes
mixed in the watts. Deep holes are
sometimes simply sunk in the ground,
but more generally pits walled with
stone or wood are sunken near every
field. Into this the manure is depos-
tied to ripen and perfect itself. Men,
boys and women then carry it in pals
on the two ends of bearing pole over
the shoulders to the fields, and with
it water the growing crops. When one
meets one of these liquid manure car
rfers on the road it is safe to hold ones
nose until the windward has been
gained. Women and men on their
knees weed the fields as at home we
weed a tiny flower bed.
As one crop begins TO ripen some
other crop is planted between the
rows. so as to get a good start before
the outgoing crop has been removed.
Even on the tea plantations, when con-
sisting of small plants, have turnips,
tarro and other crops been planted be-
tween the rows as soon as the July
plucking is finished.
The people seem to be scientifically
skilled in the rotation of crops, and
land which hos baeO in elyltiva tioo fOI.